A recent leak hints that Amazon-owned Ring is prepping some type of remote-controlled lockbox for the front door of your house, but details on the unannounced gadget remain frustratingly sketchy.
Updated April 9, 2020 to report that Ring has announced a second generation of its Ring Alarm home security system. You can read all the details here.
The Ring Doorbox leak comes from Zatz Not Funny!, a reliable source of many smart home-related whispers. The white, rectangular-shaped Doorbox looks to be about the size of a key lockbox (although it’s difficult to tell without any visual context), complete with the Ring logo, a telltale white and blue Ring button, and what appears to be a speaker grille near the bottom—or maybe it’s a handle, or a release lever? Hmmm.
Zatz Not Funny notes that the Doorbox “can be remotely locked and unlocked,” and given the apparent size of the enclosure, it seems like a good place for a key.
What the key might be for, however, is an open question, with Dave Zatz speculating that if the Ring Doobox is intended to hold a key, it might be for unlocking a package box rather than a front door.
Adding to the intrigue is a recent survey that Ring gave to members of its Explorer Program. The survey included questions about the specifications and functionality of a potential new package box, such as how such a box should look, the size of packages it would be able to contain, how much it might cost, and which parcel carriers it should work with.
The combination of Zatz’s leak and the Ring Explorer survey sure makes it sound like the Ring Doorbox could be an alternative to Amazon Key, a smart lock service that allows delivery personnel to drop off packages inside your home while you’re away.
That said, details on the leaked Ring Doorbox are too scant to venture more than an educated guess on what the device actually does or how it might work. We’ve reached out to Ring to see if there’s anything they can tell us.
Michael Simon contributed to this report.